Show Notes If you need to skip the description of "depopulation" practices they are between 22:04-24:24 In today's episode we discuss the H5N1 panzootic, and it's devastating impacts on species all across our globe. We begin by discussing what H5N1 is and the latest updates on it's spread. Then we discuss it's impact on farmed and wild non-human animals. We take a critical look at the practice called "depopulation" which is massacre in another name. We discuss our responsibility to the living creatures of this earth, their health and safety, as well as how our inaction around animal safety and factory farming has led to the massive scale of death we are seeing. We end with our thoughts on how to continue to organize and protect each other as air health and safety realists!  Image Description: An image of a lake with moody grey cloudy skies and a flock of geese flying. Their reflection is seen in the lake. The words "How Could ""Depopulation"" Ever Save Us?" can  be seen over the image.  Transcript: (incoming) Resources: How is bird flu affecting animal populations?

Show Notes Timestamp for cw: social media & labor trafficking beginning & end: 49:00-56:00 In today's episode we discuss the spectrum of impact from systemic genocides, and the difficulties accessing other people & community spaces that go unacknowledged. We discuss vulnerable disabled people begging for scraps while people of privilege buy fancy tech to avoid covid, and what it means to instead orient ourselves toward responsibility for each other's survival.  Image Description: incoming when we don't have covid!! Transcript: (incoming) Resources: incoming

Show Notes fern (they/them) and Myco (it/its) discuss housing woes, their struggles with unsafe housing and the difficulty with finding new housing to move into. Myco talks about its history of being housing insecure and unhoused, as well as the power dynamic at play where it will likely never have power over its own housing. fern talks about land back and how we can never own stolen land. They end with a wish to lift from the bottom up, and for all housing to be free.  Image Description: incoming Transcript: (incoming) Resources: Follow Us: Insta Email us at liberatorynaysayers@proton.me          

Show Notes Myco (it/its) and fern (they/them) discuss the underclasses and how being within them impacts daily decision making and relationships. They discuss the discomfort that comes with acknowledging power imbalances and what it's like to try and break down hierarchies in relationships. They also talk about the need for privileged people to step up to help support folks in the underclasses to keep us alive, instead of us needing to rely on each other for crumbs.  Image Description: A tiny person with white skin, neon yellow hair and a worried face looks up at a giant pair of legs stepping up giant stairs. The background is a misty eerie green, with a bare tree in the distance. The words "the view from down here" pop forward in white from the brown stairs. Transcript: (incoming) Resources: Follow Us: Insta Email us at liberatorynaysayers@proton.me

Show Notes Myco (it/its) and fern (they/them) discuss what it's like to shift expectations of their relationships in relation to plurality. They discuss the process and importance of, and difficulties with unmasking their plurality. They talk about the importance of valuing all the unique relationship dynamics that they see playing out. They also discuss the similarities in public attitude between polyamory and plurality, both 'othered' and treated as if they are odd instead of just regular variations of human experience. Image Description: The words "From one to many" pop forward from a creamy white background. The word "one" is colored half in green, half in peach. The word "many" is a mosaic of colors. Between the words sit two grey boxes with colored circles lined up on either side of the boxes. Squiggly colorful lines connect the circles to each other. The top grey box has only two colored circles, and two squiggly lines between them. The bottom has seven colored circles, and many lines. Transcript: transcription doc Fern (they/them): Hello!   Myco (it/its): We did not discuss who was leading this today! We did not discuss it in advance.   F: I will, is that ok?   M: Yeah.   F: I felt bad for a second because I feel like I always do. So that’s why I was like oh shit I don’t wanna take over.    M: Honestly?   F: You like when I take over?   M: You’re a really good leader.    F: Whee thank you! Alright.   Hello and welcome to another episode of Liberatory Naysayers. Yay. I am fern. They/them please.    M: Myco. It/its.    F: Today we are talking about…   M: More plural stuff?   F: More plural stuff!   M: Specifically a thing that should be very obvious but has not been and occurred to us over the past week. And has been potentially revolutionary.    F: Yeah! We had an epiphany recently that made us go wait! We’ve been doing this wrong the whole time!   M: I mean I wouldn’t say wrong.    F: I wouldn’t either.   M: I would just say as hard as possible?   F: God, hard mode, yes. No for real. It’s very true.   M: Yeah. To everybody’s credit we’ve been working really hard together.   F: Yes, we have.   M: It’s just been harder than needed I think.    F: We’ll get into why it was harder too cuz we have some reasons for that. But it’s ok.   Myco, would you like to tell our dear listeners why you chose the title you did for this episode?   M: Oh yeah. Unless you follow the instagram, you probably don’t know that I like to draw the episode graphics. It’s fun. I enjoy it.    In the process of making it I was thinking about this idea of moving from one relationship between fern and Myco. Toward acknowledging that there are many relationships between everybody. Those dynamics are different often. Even when they mirror each other in interesting ways between different people. There’s a lot going on.    Sorry. Rambly.   F: No, that answers it. From one to many. That’s what that means. You were thinking of things as one to one, and then we were like wait it’s not truly one to one.   M: It’s not and a lot of times thinking it is, or expecting it to be, is leading to conflict.   F: Mmm yes.One of the reasons we sort of fell into that pattern of interacting with each other is because of the need to mask. Right? Or maybe you would call it the habit of masking.   M: Oh 100% yeah.   F: Sometimes we don’t need to, but we just are doing it anyway. How is that, do you think, impacted things for you personally? Masking vs unmasking?   M: It makes everything really hard. Life is harder. Having to mask. Having to have spent years doing that. We have faced pretty intensive violence for any expression of madness or even just human emotion in our life. So I think it impacts the mask. Doesn’t it? The more violence that creates it, the harder it is to let go of. It’s like hammered in there you know?    F: Yes.   M: It is as natural as breathing.   F: Do you find that even in your own private space with trusted people that it’s hard to unmask.  

Show Notes fern (they/them) and Myco (it/its) discuss the impacts of life-long medical neglect and abuse at the hands of health "care" professionals. Myco reads a piece it recently wrote and chats with fern about going through the motions while feeling lost and how to cope in what feels like an impossible situation. Image Description: An exhausted, non-descript human with pale skin and neon yellow hair leans against a red wall. Behind it are the words "Thank the wall" which pop forward from the blue and green background. Transcript: Transcript doc Fern (they/them): Hello! Welcome to another episode of Liberatory Naysayers. I’m fern. I use they/them pronouns.   Myco (it/its): I’m Myco, I use it/its pronouns.   F: Myco, what are we talking about today?   M: I wanted to talk about something I wrote over the weekend. Was it over the weekend? I’m losing track of time. Is that correct?   F: Yeah, I think so. Saturday. We didn’t need that much detail. Anyway!    M: Very important!    F: This is how we function actually.   M: It was at 2:05pm on a rainy saturday in June… I mean… wait…   F: Shut up (playfully) That is how we talk a lot though. I’m like no remember it was tuesday because we did the dadada and we saw this thing. Then you’re like ooooooh yeah. Anyway. Something you’ve written recently, but something that we talk about pretty much all the time. Something on our minds all the time. Lots of chronic illness, medical neglect themes today.   What’s your writing titled?   M: I called it Liminal Dreams, but when I was thinking about what to call this episode I came up with Thank the Wall. Which is a reference to a line in the piece too, and I like that!    F: Do you wanna read it?   M: Yeah.   — I feel liminal On a razor edge Hazy Floating in and out Of consciousness Aliveness Fading   Discussing mcdonalds orders Body still needs fuel after all The mundanity of it Driving to see a possible home Maybe Probably not gonna happen if we are honest   Struggling to remain upright Struggling to remain conscious My burning spine Fantasizing about Tearing it out Throwing it out the car window   “Do you want a drink?” Yeah “I’ll split it with you” Thank you   It burns, it burns, it burns   My hips twisting My tailbone aching The weight of my head immense My eyes refusing to stay open Slipping away   Then Walking around a home Holding her hand Trying to listen To think To take in information To look for red flags To entertain   Black out again and again Try not to be noticed “Myco? Myco? Myco?” Sorry, hold on a second Heart jumping out of my throat The effort of staying upright At the top of a flight of stairs Overwhelming Thank the wall for Holding me Up   Gods I’m too sick to be looking for housing I’m too sick to be upright I’m too sick to be here   But here I am   Holding her hand As she climbs a tree As my partner gathers important information Don’t pass out Keep her from breaking her neck   Then Back to the car Fading In Out In again   “Myco pick a video!” I can’t remember anything What video? “Snake” says my partner Snake I echo back My tongue too big Too clumsy My voice tiny and slurred Far away   I slide in and out of here and now In agony fever dreams   Defending my affection for Chip the Stoma “You don’t understand! I love him!” I say to blank faced strangers at a bar As if I could ever be found at a bar   Remembering the dad I can’t remember Who gave me back after a cancer diagnosis People don’t usually give away their kids Just because they become sick   In the clear moments I wonder Sometimes If she notices If she sees past my bullshit pretending to be more than I am Wonder if she worries You do for sure   I’m worried if I’m being honest Scared   Every time my hearing cuts out Every time my vision goes black Every time my skin flushes red Every time I start panting and sweating like I ran miles Every time my speech slurs And I lose thoughts And I can’t remember Every time my spine burns Every time my bones refuse to

Show Notes Myco (it/its) and fern (they/them) talk about the shifting baseline of Myco's body and spoons day to day, the grief and challenges of change, and how the impact in ability can be met with love, support and understanding. They tie together the purpose of this podcast to the themes they discuses; loving, supporting and accommodating each others changing needs is how we build stronger communities that don't leave others behind. They end with an invitation to think about and discuss the needs you the listener have that are seen as too much, are overlooked or left behind. Image Description: The image reads "losing ability" in white against a blue background and a graph. A pink line wiggles from the corner of the graph, up and down in peaks and valleys, until it plummets down past the lines of the graph. Above the curves of the line sit the word "losing" in various heights. Below the line sits the word "Ability". The words are both in white, except for the "y" in "ability" which follows the pink line down, through the "y" and ending with a downward arrow. Transcript: (incoming) Resources: Follow Us: Insta Email us at liberatorynaysayers@proton.me

Show Notes fern (they/them) and Myco (it/its) discuss what its like being invisibly, chronically ill caregivers! They talk about spoon theory, their differing experiences of being disabled, the difficulties of balancing caring for ourselves and others, and ways we care for each other when our bodies are struggling. Image Description: The words "Chronic Condition Calculus" pop forward from a green chalkboard looking background. To the left are a neat row of spoons starting with one spoon and ending with four. Next to the spoons are equal signs with calculus equations drawn chaotically across the image. In the lower right corner is a drawing of a confused meme person. They have a thought bubble with question marks over their head, obscuring some of the math equations. Transcript: (incoming) Resources: Follow Us: Insta Email us at liberatorynaysayers@proton.me

Show Notes fern (they/them) and Myco (it/its) discuss the ongoing covid pandemic, ableism, radical disability solidarity, eugenics and genocide, and why we think covid safer parties don't go far enough to challenge a world that is apathetic to mass death. Image Description: Two humans sit on opposite sides of a brown wooden park bench, against a sun drenched brick background. The human on the left has white skin, bright yellow hair, a fluffy scrunchy hat and a big grin. The human on the right has white skin, red curly hair and bright blue eyes. Words above the people's heads reads "Lovers in dangerous covid times". Transcript: (incoming) Resources: Follow Us: Insta Email us at liberatorynaysayers@proton.me

Show Notes fern (they/them) and Myco (it/its) discuss what its like trying to parent a small human in radical, non hierarchical ways. They explore the ideas of youth liberation and adult supremacy and how to apply these ideas to day to day interactions with small humans!  Image Description: Two large humans smash at a boulder labeled "adult" with large hammers. A small human stands on top of a boulder labeled "child" smashing it with a small hammer. All these humans stand on top of a large mountain, with a clear blue sky behind them. The words "Parenting outside hierarchies" pop out against the blue sky in the top right corner of the image. Transcript: (incoming) Resources: Follow Us: Insta Email us at liberatorynaysayers@proton.me

Show Notes On today's episode, Myco (it/its) talks to fern (they/them) about their experiences within the military industrial complex. From Fern's recruitment into the military, to going on trial because of Don't Ask Don't Tell, to experiences post service as a disabled veteran.  Image Description: The words "Recruited and radicalized" pop forward from the background in white with a black background. The background is a play off of old camo, with a soft splotchy, mossy patchwork of blues, grays and blacks.  Transcript: transcript doc Myco: Hello, and welcome to another episode of Liberatory Naysayers. My name is Myco. I use it/its pronouns, and today I am talking to–as often is the case–the very lovely fern.   Fern: Hello!   M: And you use they/them pronouns…   F: For now!   M: For now!   Today, we are talking about fern’s experiences in the military and being a veteran.   F: Oh boy, yes. I am very anxious about this episode. It’s a little weird being a self-described anarchist who also voluntarily signed up and served seven years in the fucking military. Oh, boy. So, yeah. I feel strange talking about this, but also I feel like I have maybe a unique perspective and maybe even some listeners could relate, or maybe even someone litening knows somebody kind of in my situation maybe? I don’t know. It’s kind of nice to think that maybe I could help someone understand their perspective, too, a little, if that makes sense?   M: it does. Alright, so, to get us started fern: why did you enlist in the military?   F: So, there were a few reasons. To give a little bit of context, I graduated high school in 2007. Almost everybody I knew had either already signed up and were just waiting to graduate high school and then were immediately going to get shipped off to boot camps around the country, or they were thinking about it. I was one of those people thinking about it.   M: So it was really the culture where you grew up.   F: It was. I grew up in the midwest surrounded by corn and lots of conservatives. My parents were extremely conservative. Fox News was on all of the time. WOWO radio (oh god, I’m really giving away my location here because that’s an AM radio station near where I grew up). It had all of your famous conservative talking heads. I’m trying to think of his name…he died of lung cancer recently…Rush Limbaugh! Rush Limbaugh on in the car. Shepherd Smith on and different Fox News people on the TV at home. I was steeped in that conservative, right-wing, republican-leaning land.   So, yeah, I wanted to go to college for music, and I actually auditioned for my local colleges and got offered a small scholarship, but it was barely gonna touch tuition. I was so scared to go into debt. I was so terrified to take out loans. I know that’s seen as a hting you just do, but maybe because I grew up lower/middle class, I just…my family had no money saved for me to go to college. I had no money saved up. I did not work through school. I just went to school and did all the musical things I could. When I was faced with the options, the military was really attractive to me because my friends were gonna be doing it, too. I didn’t feel like I would be doing it alone, and because they were offering to pay for college. So, to me it just seemed kind of like a no-brainer as someone in my financial situation.   Another reason was that in my high school, they let us take the ASVAB (you’re gonna have to forgive me, I don’t remember what that stands for). It’s basically just an aptitude test to determine what kind of jobs would I qualify for if I wanted to be in the military. My high school offered that where everybody could just take it. You didn’t have join if you took it, but you could just take it to see. So, a lot of us did. It got us out of class one day, so we of course did it. We’re gonna talk later about how that’s part of predatory recruitment practices. You said you saw that in your own schools.   M: I went to a lit of different scho

Show Notes fern (they/them/?) and Myco (it/its) chat about relationship anarchy and love. Image Description: The words "On love and anarchy" pop out in a bright white against a soft, dreamy yellow and red gradient background. Transcript: transcript doc Fern (they/them): Hello and welcome to another episode of Liberatory Naysayers!   Myco (it/its): Hello!   F: I’m fern. I use they/them pronouns.   M: I’m Myco. I use it/its pronouns.    F: Today we wanted to talk about…   M: Relationships?   F: Relationships?   M: Yeah.    F: Specifically relationship anarchy and our thoughts on that.    M: Yeah! I identify as a relationship anarchist and polyamorous. I believe you do too?   F: I do now, but I’m really new to these concepts and new to living my life with those values in mind. If that makes sense? I feel like you’re more experienced with that. I’m kinda the baby polyamorous relationship anarchist.   M: I’ve been calling myself a relationship anarchist for at least eleven or twelve years I wanna say. Polyamorous as well. Not that my beginning experiences in any of this were any good. It’s a learning curve. Especially out in the world where hierarchies are really really normalized.    F: My experience with polyamory specifically is fraught with misconceptions and abuse. So the understanding that I have now is radically different from the understanding I had when I started to realize how I felt about people in my life. My friends, my lovers, my partners. I was cheated on, then told that person cheated on me because they could love more than one person.    M: Yucky.   F: That’s a really shitty way to come across that concept and idea.   M: yes it is.   F: For a long time that kept me from being more open to that idea. There was a lot of pain tied up. A lot of personal hurt. The ironic thing about that is that I also feel like I love deeply and intensely more than just one person in a romantic way at the same time! It kinda sucks that I never got to explore that earlier, but here I am now.   M: The truth is he was just using polyamory as an excuse because just because you can love multiple people doesn’t mean you should be goin around acting on that without discussing it with your partners.   F: One hundred percent yes.   M: That’s not how anything works.   F: It was very what you would call “unethical” nonmonogamy.   M: You can have that arrangement. A don’t ask, don’t tell thing. But you talk about that ahead of time! You consent to that!    F: Right, sure. And that didn’t happen.   M: You don’t just go “this is what I’m doing!”   F: No, it was more used as an excuse to try to get me to not be angry and leave and to keep me in their life.   M: Yucky. That’s manipulative.   F: Very manipulative, yeah.   M: I don’t like that. I’m sorry you experienced that.   F: It’s very ironic. I say ironic because I probably would have been open to having an “open relationship” with this person that I was married to at one point. But they kinda ruined that for me I feel like in a lot of ways. So there’s that. Anyway.   Speaking of loving more than one person. I think it would be interesting to hear your thoughts on this idea of there being a line between different types of love or kinds of love we have for the people in our lives. I wanted to hear your thoughts on that because I find that really fascinating.    M: Yeah. I am the sort of person where I don’t fully understand the difference between what people call friendship and romance. Right? Outside of specific scenarios you know. Power dynamics. Think of a power dynamic, those make lines a lot clearer. But between equals, the difference between friendship, like deeply loving your friends, and loving a romantic partner are not super clear to me. Even the difference between friend dates and date dates. What is the line here?   Part of me feels like it’s because it’s a hierarchy thing. It’s an artificial hierarchy.   F: Yup. It does feel like that. Especially when I thought I was monoam

Show Notes Myco (it/its) and fern (they/them/?) discuss neo-slavery as they see it show up in the world around them and as it has impacted Myco throughout its life.  Image Description: A small human walks down a red runway, surrounded by sketchy, loosely drawn people in chairs clapping, and colorful balloons. The words "Colonizer and a slave" separate the small human from the clapping audience.  Content Warning: This episode contains discussion of slavery, trafficking, abuse, white supremacy, cultural alienation, etc. Transcript: transcript doc Fern (they/them): Hello and welcome to another episode of Liberatory Naysayers!   Myco (it/its): Hi!   F: That was Myco. Myco uses it/it's pronouns. I'm Fern, I use they/them pronouns. For now.    M: For now!   F: They don't fit anymore.   M: No   F: They're like a sweater that's a little too tight or itchy. But that's for another episode.    M: you'll find the right ones!   F: I will! Do you want to introduce our topic today Myco? It is one that is near and dear to your heart. Maybe not so much dear, but near?   M: Yeah, yeah. Near like a dagger. I almost said a splinter and then I was like ah, I hate that, that's too small.   F: Yeah, that's fair. Like a stake.   M: Yeah, so we wanted to talk about neo slavery. Which is a topic I've been thinking about pretty much nonstop.   F: And talking about constantly.   M: Yeah. Which is a step up from last year and previous years where I kept forgetting over and over again about it. Because it was too lava to hold that I think.    F: Yup.   M: But now I'm holding it! And I need to talk about it all the time. And I need other people to listen all the time! I can't shut up about it and everybody has to hear about it all the time! So!    F: Dear listeners, you now also need to hear about it.    M: Yeah!    F: How would... well, before we get into a definition- I want to ask you how you would define neo slavery as someone who maybe as not really come across that label. But before that I'm thinking maybe a content warning might be appropriate?   M: Yeah, honestly all of our episodes need content warnings...   F: I mean.. The Naming of A Thing doesn't feel too terrible.   M: So I guess for this one we're gonna talk about abuse, trafficking, genocide, neo slavery. The realities of the world. I don't know. We can post specifics afterwards when we do transcripts.   F: Check the notes if you wanna see details.   M: We never script anything, we talk off the cuff, so it's a little hard to say exactly what will come up and what we will discuss in the moment.    F: Ok! That's fair. Neo slavery. What is the definition in your opinion?   M: Right, so. At it's most base it's modern slavery. It is current, happening in real time. It acknowledges, in my opinion... cuz neo has this new connotation to it... it acknowledges that slavery has shifted and changed. It is not the same it was. It doesn't look the same it did.   I think people in power are really invested in us understanding slavery as either very specific chattel slavery which has been strictly abolished.   F: Technically abolished.   M: Technically. But like in the specific way it showed up, it is. That's one of the ways they control us right? They keep us from understanding the world around us by like strictly defining these tings.   F: That's true, they set the definitions and then expect us to go along.   M: But the truth is slavery has changed. It still exists, it's still there. It's everywhere around us. The definition is a lot broader than white supremacy wants it to be.   So with that in mind I would say that neo slavery shows up in many ways in the world. I think it shows up in a lot more ways than I know about and talk about to be clear. I'm sure there are a lot of ways that I don't know about and I super wanna know.   F: Yeah, that's true.   M: I think it's important to talk about in every way shape and form. But ways I notice it are in the foster and adoption system. I notice it in

Show Notes Myco rambles a bit about itself to an imaginary audience (you!) Image Description: A cute blue and tan mushroom with big sparkly eyes sits against a dreamy blue and purple gradient background. Above and below the mushroom sit the words "Myco intro" in blue Transcript: transcript doc Hello, and welcome to another episode of Liberatory Naysayers. My name is Myco. I use it/its pronouns, and today I am by myself cuz I thought it'd be really fun to do a little intro episode for myself. Fern is off packing the last of their things at their ex's place which is not fun, but needs to be done. First I wanted to say that we are plural, and that's something we've been talking about in a couple of episodes now. As far as day-to-day life goes, we are masking. There's not really anyone other than our immediate close surrounding people who know that about us, and that's a lot for our own safety. It's a saneist world out there, and that comes with a lot of difficulty that I don't have the power and privileged position to weather very safely, ya know? I would say that I am a survivor of many lives and abuses and institutions. I think it's actually really important to name myself as a survivor especially in a system where surviving is not something that everybody does. I have a sister who did not survive. My father did not survive the prison industrial complex. That's just people close to me. Even when it feels like parts of me have died (I hesitate to use that language because I don't particularly like it)...even when it feels like folk within me have died (maybe that's a little better, I like that better), because they have experienced repeated near-death experiences, there is still reality to my ongoing living and survival that feels like a privilege in some ways because there are plenty who do not manage to keep going or have different experiences outside of these painful, difficult lives we live, ya know? I hope I'm making sense. I'm being ramble-y. I would describe myself as an anarchist and an abolitionist. I would describe myself as gentle, at least I try really hard to be. I think I have a pretty good grasp on the world around me. I spent a lot of time in intentional research time trying to understand how all of these systems function and why in an effort to understand my own life because my life didn't make a lot of sense to me. I don't understand how someone can experience so much intensive violence. It was because I didn't understand the world around me, and I didn't understand white supremacy. I didn't understand pipelines and how being marginalized in one way impacts you in others and increases your likelihood of being marginalized in other ways. The ways intergenerational marginalization trauma and harm increases those chances and changes the course of your life. I didn't understand genocide. I didn't understand our country (by that I mean so-called United States of Amerikkka).  I didn't understand anything, which is by design. I am not alone or unique in that. Propaganda is intense and everywhere and intense, and it feels like a part of life is the unlearning we have to do. The untangling. The relearning. The changing of ourselves and our understandings in order to accurately and truthfully reflect the world around us. That was a whole lot of words. I would describe myself as many, many things. Ramble-y and rant-y is one of them, sometimes. Sometimes I can barely speak and have no words. It really depend on who's around and what's going on. I would describe myself and really compassionate and caring. I would say that has been a part of me since I was really young. I remember when I was really little that I cried when I learned meat was animals. And they were animals I'd been friends with. I had cows and fed them and visited them on my family's farm. My grandmother had chickens, so I cried. I've always been really empathetic. It's really important to me to break down hierarchies when I see them and feel them

Show Notes In today's episode, Myco (it/tis) and fern (they/them) discuss disposability as they see it showing up in their lives and the world around them. Image Description: A cute little green trash can with big sparkly eyes sits against a blue and orange gradient background with the words "Disposability Culture" at the top of the image above the trash can.  Transcript: (incoming) Resources: Follow us: Insta Email us at liberatorynaysayers@proton.me

Show Notes In today's episode fern (they/them) talks with Myco (it/its) about its experiences growing up in the foster "care" system. Myco connects the dots to how marginalization and genocides leads to the foster and adoption systems. Image Description: The words "Adoption Abolition" pop out of the background in the center of the image. In the background a large pile of blue, pink, white and brown balloons stretches up toward the blue sky. Content Warning: Brief mentions of suicide, multiple genocides, child abuse, attempted murder, psychiatric incarceration, sexual violence, trafficking, neo-slavery, slave markets and the history of orphan trains. Transcript: transcript doc ADOPTION ABOLITION55:49 Fern: Hello, and welcome to another episode of Liberatory Naysayers. I'm Fern! I use they/ them pronouns, and today I am doing this episode with Myco. Myco: Hello. F: Myco uses it/its pronouns and today’s topic…we're just gonna dive right in, aren’t we?M: Yeah!F: You want talk about what today's topic is?M: Oh boy, um adoption abolition and my experiences and my perspectives on that because I feel like that's one that does not get talked about half as much as I think it needs to be talked about though I might be biased because I have experienced these things. F: Yeah, I have to imagine that you are not the only person who's had similar experiences and feels the same way and probably wishes…is maybe looking for other stories or other experiences to feel less alone in this nightmare. I'm really glad we're talking about this today, even though it's gonna pretty intense. Pretty, pretty tough. M: This is a topic where I frequently get very ranty and rambly and off track and lose what exactly my point is because I am very passionate about it and also I have a lot of flashbacks. That's a thing that happens, too.F: TrueM: I get lost a lot, but I'm excited to have you here to help keep this train on the tracks. F: I was just gonna say: I will be here to guide us through this. Before we listen to your story and your experiences, would you like to give a content warning? M: Yeah, so I haven’t planned anything out exactly, but broadly we're going to touch on genocide. My experiences hit the topics of saneism, ableism, incarceration, foster care/group home/orphanage-type experiences. I don't plan to dive too deep into descriptions of much of anything, but talk about it from a further kind of perspective systemically as opposed to the gory details, if that makes sense. I plan to talk about trafficking, abuse, white supremacy, horrifying stereotypes of orphans, psych wards, slavery (neo-slavery specifically, which I find isn't discussed enough considering our world runs on it)…So, you know…pretty much if it’s upsetting, we’re probably about to talk about it right now. Take care of yourself. F: Yes. Okay.M: Okay, do you think that's adequate? F: Yes, I do. After the episode--before we post—we’ll be sure to put anything we missed in this content warning into the notes. So check there if you are anxious or worried about what might come up. We'll have everything detailed there. Yeah. Cool.Okay, so why…why adoption abolition?M: The simplest answer to that is probably because I was a foster kid, and eventually adopted, and I have experienced what these systems do to children first-hand. I wanna talk about it. I wanna discuss it with people, and I wanna see more people understand that adoption abolition is necessary. Foster care and adoption are directly a product of genocide.F: Yes.M: Yeah. F: Before we started today’s episode, you lightly touched on how there’s this big picture of genocide that adoption abolition ties into. You sort of touched on it now. Do you want to expound upon it now?M: Oh, boy. Yes. So, from my perspective, our society is the product of many, many types of genocide. Intergenerationally. Over time. They have become systemic and invisiblized but are nevertheless completely real. So, we all know about chattel slavery an

Show Notes fern (they/them) and Myco (it/its) get a little more personal today about discovering their plurality, coming out to others as plural, and imagining plurality in a more liberated world.   Image Description: The words "Plural Liberation Part 2" pop forward from the background in a dusty purple color. The background has a large glowing blue ampersand taking up the majority of the space, with a dreamy purple gradient surrounding it.  Transcript: Transcript doc Fern (they/them): Hello and welcome to another episode of Liberatory Naysayers!   Myco (it/its): Hi!    F: Hi!   M: I’m eager.   F: You are! We are very excited and anxious, just like part one, about today’s episode. We are going to be continuing our conversation about plurality. Today we plan to get a little more personal and talk more about our personal experiences with plurality.    M: Yeah, the last episode was more like a wide view, introducing what plurality is. These big concept ideas and now we’re gonna zoom in to what it means for our day to day lives.    F: Before we started recording for today’s episode we were talking about how this episode still ties in with our theme of liberatory naysaying. I want to know if you wanted to talk a little bit about that for a second before we kinda get more into the meat of today's conversation.    M: When it comes to plurality there is a lot of destigma work that needs to be done. I think a lot about the need to normalize plural experiences and mad experiences in general. I think about something that fern and I have talked about, which is radical honesty as a practice that frees us all. I think a lot about sanism, which I know we will come back to and talk about in a little bit.    All of this is so important to me more personally, to zoom in, because I have had a lot of really hard experiences as well. Being a mad person, being a plural person out in the world navigating relationships with other people and other peoples bigotries. Internalized oppression experiences even.    Is that a good?   F: Yeah, it is. You wanted to start with something you had written in the past, right?   M: Yeah, I did.    F: Cool, I’d love if you’d read that! Actually real quick before we do that, we should have done our intros. This is fern, they/them pronouns.   M: Myco, it/its pronouns. We were too excited to start.   F: We kinda just skimmed right through that one didn’t we? Would you like to read what you wrote?   M: My poem.   F: Do you remember when you wrote this?   M: I wrote this last year. It was… let’s see. In may of last year. That was around when I met you I think. I think it was a little before?   F: Before we met.   M: Yeah. So this poem is kinda like thinking about my name and how you name things. Which ties back into…   F: Our fist episode.   M: Yeah, it does! So it’s called Missing The Trees For The Forest.   Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when published I am chimera of many names Galaxies and multitudes Contained in flesh  Blending one into the next It's easy to miss the trees for the forest Don't let that fool you   Myco the word for this creature Symbol of intent  Path forward through the fog Tracking the knowing   We have lived many lives Nothing here is static Fixed, unchanging Maybe we flow a little  Less restrained than most Why must we contain ourselves For anyone's comfort?   I am merely the writer Simply the one breathing life  into letters and letting them bloom   Graceful Seelie bard Fey creature Story singer Sorting the fragmented pieces Spinning them into sense and meaning    Our first name  Carefully crafted  Meaning measured  A gift and a wish For the healing tree This sapling would grow to be   How do you name a forest? How do you begin such a thing?   Consider the roots What connects us all   Fungi thrive beneath the earth  Vast networks of mutual aid Allowing the forest to connect Communicate, collaborate   A name is only a symbol Don't mistake it for self   F: I

Show Notes Ash (they/them) and Myco (it/its) discuss plurality from a plural liberation perspective. Plurality being defined simply as "the experience of being many". They also discuss mad liberation, disability justice, crip negativity, hierarchies and more!  Image Description: The words "Plural Liberation Part 1" pop forward from the background in a dusty purple color. The background has a large glowing blue ampersand taking up the majority of the space, with a dreamy purple gradient surrounding it.  Transcript: transcript doc   Fern (they/them): Hello! Welcome to another episode of Liberatory Naysayers! I’m Ash. They/them pronouns. Today I’m gonna be talking with… Myco (it/its): Myco! It/its pronouns. F: We’re really excited, and a little bit anxious to be talking about… F & M in unison: Plurality! F: Myco would you like to… would you be cool with describing plurality for any listeners who might not be familiar with that term, with what that means? M: Yeah! I would start with the caveat of like what that means to people is widely different depending on who you talk to. It’s a lot like transness right? Like it’s a catchall term that we think we can define really simply, but you ask any one individual person and you’ll get a different answer from someone else. Right? So plurality in it’s most broad sense is the experience of being many. Of being more than one. Is that a good starting definition or? F: Yeah, I think so! M: Ok cool. F: Why did you wanna do an episode on plurality? M: I think for one there are a lot of understandings out there of plurality. I feel like my understanding is a little bit different and unique. I come at it from an abolitionist, anarchist lens. Psych abolitionist, specifically. I care very deeply about mad, crip, neoroqueer liberation.  I don’t know. I kinda wanted to talk about my perspective. As scary as that is!  F: Speaking of scary… Up to this point in your life, from my understanding, it hasn’t been… it’s been a very dangerous thing for you to open up about this aspect of yourself with people. Whether that’s partners or.. I’m not sure if you’ve ever told family members or anything like that.  M: I don’t think so, no. F: In the traditional sense of the term family members. Ok, so it’s been more chosen family that you’ve talked about it before with. You’ve had very different responses from people. It kinda runs the gamut for you. M: Supportive, not really interested, to like straight up abusive. It’s been hard. F: So opening up about this part of yourself is not easy because of all that.  M: Oppression is never fun. F: No, never. I guess if people tuning in were to stop this episode after this question here, what would you… what's the main thing that you would want people who maybe who don’t identify as plural or don’t have those experiences… What would you want them to know as someone who does identify as plural? M: The media is garbage. Throw it in the trash. Don’t believe the superhero stuff. Don’t believe the “we’re all sick scary serial killers” or none of that. I think that’s every plural person’s like top thing to drive home. We are not weird. We are not scary. We are not magical. We’re just people. Just people trying to exist. Just be kind to us. F: Yeah, definitely. There’s a lot of stigma around being plural and what that means. What that looks like.  M: Some perpetuated by plural people themselves and that’s a whole thing. F: True, that gets even stickier. On the flipside, what is something that you would want other people who identify as plural to know? M: I like that question! I would broaden it out to people who have plural experiences but who don’t necessarily identify as plural as well. DID, OSDD… especially folks who identify with more medicalized language. I think this applies very much to. That would be hierarchies are never good. They’re oppression. That includes inter system hierarchies. I think in a lot of ways that these ideas of hierarchical system arrangem

Show Notes Myco (it/its) chats with today's guest fern (they/them) about names! The podcast's name inspiration, personal naming stories and tips, our thoughts on trans name ideas, among other things. Image Description: The words "The naming of a thing" pop forward with purple lettering against a yellow and purple gradient background. Transcript: Transcript doc   Myco (it/its): Hello! Welcome to Liberatory Naysayers! In today's chat, we have someone I love very very much. They are delightful and kind and such a wonderful parent and a badass comrade. My partner Ash! Ash (they/them): Hello! I'm so glad this is audio medium and not video so you can't see how red my face is right now! *laughter* Myco: It's cute! Ash: Haha! Yes! Myco: What pronouns do you use? Ash: I use they/them pronouns! Myco: Sweet. Do you want to tell us about yourself? Ash: I do! Hi I'm Ash! I'm queer, polyamorous. Grew up in the Midwest. Joined the military right out of high school. Oddly enough, the miliary is where I was first radicalized. Or at least the seed was first planted by some anarcho communist who would carry around the communist manifesto everywhere and I was scared of them. That could be an episode for a different day. I am disabled. I was disabled long before covid and further disabled after catching covid. I mask pretty much anywhere and everywhere now. If I'm being honest I stopped for a time a couple years after the pandemic. I was thinking "oh things are changing and getting better" then I learned otherwise from people luckily. \ Myco: Propaganda gets us all.  Ash: It sure does. So I'm really grateful that I follow the people i followed on social media and there were different ideas being put out there about covid. It really made me reconsider what I was doing and how I was living after the pandemic started.  I am a parent to an awesome 5 year old. I'm really passionate about youth liberation. Abolition in all forms. Prison, psychiatric. Pretty much any form of punitive, carceral systems. Not down with that. I am learning more and more all the time about disability justice.  I deliver masks with our city's Mask Bloc. Myco and I do that together. We help take care of one of our communities Love Fridges. Which basically, if your city doesn't have one or you're not familiar, you literally have a fridge outside. There's like a little shelter built over it and community members can come by and put food in it. It's a no questions asked, no barrier to entry, no means testing. If you need food or drink and you come by the fridge and there's stuff there, you take what you can- Myco and Ash at the same time: you leave what you can *laughter*  Ash: Also one of the things I'm really excited about as far as mutual aid and taking care of our neighbors and our community, is that we sized up our car last year just so we could do comrade shit. We love telling people we can do comrade shit now because we have the space. So yeah. That's me. Myco: Love it! That was a great intro! Ash: Thanks! So Myco you mentioned earlier today you wanted to talk about names. Myco: Yeah! We were talking about... names are really important in queer, and especially trans spaces. I know in a lot of communities names are very important. Also thinking about naming this podcast. Thinking about our personal names. Thinking about trans philosophies of names. I thought it would be really fun to talk to you about that! Ash: Awesome. Do you want to start with why you named the podcast the name that you did? Myco: Yeah! I would love that!  Ash: Ok. Myco: When I first met Ash, we exchanged books pretty early on. Like some of our favorite things. I gave Ash a poetry book. Andrea Gibson for anybody curious. Ash gave me We Wont Be Here Tomorrow by Margaret Killjoy. It was amazing.  Ash: It was kinda our way of flirting wasn't it? Myco: Yes. Ash: Ooo you take my book, I'll take your book! Like getting the star football players letterman jacket in high school. Ew Gross. Myco: Sendin

Show Notes In this beginning episode Myco (it/its) introduces itself and discusses it's ideas behind this project as a space for challenging conversations around oppression, liberation and how we get free together.  Image Description: The words "welcoming intentions" sits against a soft orange sky, surrounded by lush greenery and some warm yellow glowing lights. Transcript: Transcript doc   Myco (it/its): Hello and welcome to the beginning of a project that I am calling Liberatory Naysayers. I want to use this space as a way to kinda chronicle and archive what my journey, and the journey of the loved ones around me are... toward building safety and healthy relationships and community and liberation as much as we can within this society. I know that a hard and sticky and messy process. I would like to have conversations with people about what that looks like for them as well. I am a bit of a perfectionist and very anxious so it's hard for me to not want to wait on this until it is perfect. Get all my ducks in a row, get all my words right. But I also know that perfectionism is rooted in white supremacy. A lot of the times the things I am self conscious about within myself, the things I consider imperfections, are actually just differences in my brain and body and how I function. The shame and fear and anxiety I feel around making mistakes is one that keeps me stuck. And keeps me from trying.  I would rather build something messy, and see how it goes and change it as needed along the way, than do nothing.   So that's where I'm starting. If you're still listening to me ramble: hi, thank you! My name is Myco. I use it/it's pronouns. I am 33 years old as I am talking right now, as I am recording this. I am queer and trans, if you didn't pick that up by the it pronouns. I am trans of the fluid/non-binary variety. I am deeply passionate about ending gender segregation. I am polyamorous. I consider myself a relationship anarchist. I believe in building relationships that are mutually comfortable and safe and beneficial. That often looks different than the societal blueprint that we are expected to follow. So being a relationship anarchist kind of gives me the freedom to explore outside of that blueprint and try new things. I'm an abolitionist. I had a very difficult journey to that belief and understanding. It's very personal to me. I was the victim of some pretty horrifying things when I was a baby. I consider myself a survivor. I find it interesting that being a survivor has both pushed me along the path toward abolition and liberatory ways of thinking and understanding. But at the same time it was a block for a while because I felt too close to it. Too afraid. Shouldn't people like the people who harmed me be in jail? Which, no. But it was a journey to get there. That's an interesting story, maybe for another day. Let's see, what else can I tell you about myself? I'm a parent. I love it. It's very important to my day to day. I don't have a lot of time or spoons, most of it goes to my little one, or my partners, or my creative pursuits. I have my fingers in all sorts of little projects at all given points in time. I'm disabled. i have been jokingly calling myself "Chiari compromised" meaning essentially that I am high risk if I get ill, if I catch a virus. Especially covid. But I am not immunocompromised. I have a condition in which coughing and sneezing, and any sort of strain can make my brain herniate further and make me very very extra sick. I don't see many people talking about that. I see mostly people talking about immunocompromised. Which is very real and fair and a lot of people experience that. But it's interesting to think of others ways there are high risk conditions that are important to protect from covid.  I have a partner who is epileptic. The one time they had covid it made their seizures very, very bad. We consider them high risk because of that. Having seizures is not a fun time. It's important we prot